‘Artemisia’: The Romantic Roots of Rape Culture

The impulse to erase a woman’s testimony, to deny her agency and perception of the crime, while denying society’s victim blaming and bias against survivors of rape — this is the basis of what feminism describes as rape culture. Yet here it is practiced not by a misogynist man, nor by a loyal friend of the alleged rapist, but by a female director aiming to create “emphatically a feminist film.”

Artemisia

Written by Brigit McCone.

[Trigger warning: discussion of rape]


Is it possible to admire a woman’s art while denying its meaning? Certainly, a feminist viewer wants to admire 1997’s Artemisia, a ravishingly beautiful film about a young girl seizing control of her talent and sexuality in the face of a sexist society, filmed by a female director, Agnès Merlet. It tells the story of the first woman to become an official member of Florence’s Academy of Art and Design, the most famous female artist of the Renaissance, Artemisia Gentileschi. Merlet’s Artemisia is a director before her time in the seventeenth century. She oversees the setting up of her studio with minute detail and assertive power, frames her paintings like movie shots, orders men to strip and model for her, and poses their naked bodies with intense interest. Even as a girl in the repressive environment of a convent school, Gentileschi is studying and sketching her naked body with a mirror, with a heroic immunity to social pressures. She has a lively sexual curiosity, spying on a couple having sex on the beach before fitting herself into the imprint their bodies have made in the sand, and watching the older painter Agostino Tassi’s orgies with fascination. It is she who pursues Tassi to be her teacher, who strips and poses him as a model, who dictates the terms of their relationship. The film begins with a close-up of Artemisia’s rolling eyeball and it is shaped by her gaze. To see the beautiful, youthful Valentina Cervi cast as the artist instead of the muse, stripping and studying men for her own pleasure rather than being stripped, should mark Artemisia as a refreshing feminist delight. If only Artemisia herself were a fictional character.

But Artemisia is a historical figure, and transcripts from her grueling, seven-month-long rape trial have survived and are the major source for the film. It is a historical fact that Artemisia Gentileschi accused Agostino Tassi of breaking into her bedchamber and raping her. Merlet’s film follows the rough outline of what the real Gentileschi described, but reimagines it as clumsy seduction. Artemisia’s refusals are a murmured reluctance, not strong or fearful denials. She returns kisses and submits, before gasping in pain and pushing Tassi away, as he mumbles in apologetic confusion at the misunderstanding over her virginity. Not that virginity is a particularly great concern for the unbelievably socially immune Artemisia. The whole event is miscommunication more than violation. Later, the youthful Artemisia will take the controlling and guiding role in their love-making, posing the submissive and adoring Tassi for her signature portrait of “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” straddling him in seduction rather than attempted murder. For the masterful Tassi, who is accustomed to ordering around his naked female models like pieces of meat, to find himself awed and overcome by the strength of Artemisia’s personality is an interesting role reversal. When her father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi, discovers their affair, he tries to force Tassi to marry Artemisia and initiates the rape trial, despite Artemisia telling him that Tassi didn’t rape her but “gave me pleasure.”

Artemisia

Again, one can see a feminist message here, criticizing a society that refuses to acknowledge a woman’s sexual agency or pleasure, yet Merlet is not only twisting the facts but ignoring them, in her need to reinterpret rape testimony as romance. Her Artemisia never accuses Tassi of rape. The fingers of her artist’s hands are bound with chords and torturously squeezed, to force her to confess that she was raped, while Tassi watches in loving agony and confesses himself, merely to spare her pain. In the harsh world of historical fact, Gentileschi was indeed tortured, but it was to force her to withdraw her detailed accusations. Her society pressured women, not to make false accusations but to deny rape. Tassi, meanwhile, defended himself by alleging that Gentileschi was promiscuous and “an insatiable whore.” Whatever their relationship was, it was hardly an epic romance. Why, then, does Merlet, or her intended audience, feel such a need to reimagine it as one? Art historian Mary Garrard and feminist journalist/activist Gloria Steinem protested the film’s inaccuracies at the time of its release. But watching the film, I was struck by more than historical untruth.

I thought about the transformations Merlet had performed on the historical sources: she silenced Artemisia’s testimony, by denying it was ever given; she painstakingly reimagined the circumstances described in the rape transcripts, in such a way that they could have been romantic misunderstanding or clumsy seduction; finally, she reversed an entire society’s values, to imagine a woman pressured by law enforcement to make false accusations, rather than punished for daring to allege rape. The impulse to erase a woman’s testimony, to deny her agency and perception of the crime, while denying society’s victim blaming and bias against survivors of rape — this is the basis of what feminism describes as rape culture. Yet here it is practiced not by a misogynist man, nor by a loyal friend of the alleged rapist, but by a female director aiming to create “emphatically a feminist film.” Why does Merlet feel such a strong compulsion to defend a man who has been dead for over 400 years? Or, is it the image of a vulnerable and exploited Artemisia that she cannot tolerate? What do her rewrites tell us about the mental roots of rape culture?

In an interview by Merlet with the UK’s Independent, two possible reasons are given for Artemisia‘s portrayal. Merlet wanted Artemisia to represent “a more modern kind of feminism, fighting alongside men, not against them,” and she claims that the evidence of the trial can be read in many ways, because there is a “mass of contradictory evidence.” These suggestions need to be considered in more detail. Firstly, what is the contradictory evidence? Perhaps Merlet refers to Artemisia’s testimony that, following her painful rape, she continued to have sex with, and even love, Tassi because he promised her marriage. Regarding this as “contradictory evidence” shows an immaturity in our culture’s understanding of rape, that it must always be the isolated act of a monster, rather than a violation that can take place within a complex relationship. More than that, though, it is a denial of historical context. Deuteronomy 22:28, which claims that a man who rapes a virgin “must marry the girl, for he has violated her,” would have been generally accepted in Gentileschi’s time. To admit that Artemisia could be terrified by the thought of becoming a “fallen” or ruined woman, and could rely on Tassi’s promise to marry her as her only salvation, is to see her as an uncomfortably vulnerable human rather than Merlet’s dominant superheroine. It was during this period, before the trial (not afterwards, as Merlet’s film suggests), that Gentileschi painted her famous portrait of “Susanna and the Elders,” depicting Susanna’s naked body contorted in horror and writhing away from the staring, whispering judgments of the elders looming over her. It is a powerful portrait of female vulnerability under patriarchal scrutiny, but that is precisely the vulnerability that Merlet does not allow Artemisia to feel. So, we return to the question that opened this post: is it possible to admire a woman’s art while denying its meaning?

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Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” which she painted directly after her humiliating rape trial, is one of the most violent expressions of female rage in art. In contrast to the timid Judith that Caravaggio portrayed, Gentileschi’s women are filled with strength, solidarity and resolution, dominating Holofernes (whose face resembles Agostino Tassi’s) as the male elders had dominated Susanna. Merlet actually cites the power of this painting, and her shock at its female authorship, as the trigger that began her fascination with Gentileschi. Yet she strives to tame the image, presenting it as a loving collaboration between Artemisia and Tassi. By such painstaking reimagining, Merlet reveals the key feature of the 1990s’ “more modern kind of feminism” (or “girl power”): not its willingness to “fight alongside men” (and why should one rapist be representative of “men”?), but its discomfort with female anger and vulnerability. Like Merlet’s film, “girl power” celebrates the positive sexual freedom of women to desire and seduce, but not their negative sexual freedom to refuse and define boundaries; their positive freedom to take charge, not their negative freedom to protest poor treatment. In that, it resembles the freedoms promised to women by the “free love” culture of the 1960s, whose abuses and exploitations prompted second-wave feminism.

Artemisia’s art is certainly celebrated by Merlet’s film through luscious costumes and Caravaggesque lighting, but without its meaning, the art seems hollow and disconnected from the painter herself. When we see Tassi’s image in the real Artemisia Gentileschi’s paintings, as the sleeping man whose head is about to be chiseled open by a smiling woman in “Jael and Sisera,” as the leering satyr in “Corisca and the Satyr,” and in numerous variations on the Judith theme, are we to ignore the repeated violence, to allow it to communicate nothing about the feelings and intentions of the woman behind the brush? Women threatened by voyeurs, like Corisca, Susanna and Bathsheba; women escaping male clutches through heroic suicide, like Cleopatra and Lucretia; women murdering men, like Judith and Sisera — these are the figures that populate the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi. To deny her rage and vulnerability is to deny the passion and power of her art. Agnès Merlet’s film Artemisia is a beautiful celebration of the positive freedoms of women, that forms a kind of feminist ideal. But without the willingness to explore suffering, or to express anger, it is only half-alive, and a disservice to the full-blooded achievement of Artemisia Gentileschi.


Brigit McCone is still mad she wasn’t taught more about Artemisia in art class. She writes and directs short films and radio dramas. Her hobbies include doodling and getting lost in Vieira da Silva paintings.

‘Bleeding Heart’ and All the Times It’s Probably Okay to Shoot Someone

Written and directed by Diane Bell, ‘Bleeding Heart’ is about class privilege, moral hypocrisy, and the arrogance of preaching nonviolence to people about to be killed. Mostly, though, it’s a chance to watch Zosia Mamet play someone other than Shoshanna and drink in a dark but gorgeous colour palette.

Bleeding Heart

Written by Katherine Murray.


Written and directed by Diane Bell, Bleeding Heart is about class privilege, moral hypocrisy, and the arrogance of preaching nonviolence to people about to be killed. Mostly, though, it’s a chance to watch Zosia Mamet play someone other than Shoshanna and drink in a dark but gorgeous color palette.

Having premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2015, Bleeding Heart tells the story of an ashtanga yoga teacher named May (Jessica Biel), who makes contact with a half-sister she’s never known (Zosia Mamet), and quickly has a crisis of conscience over how she should behave.

May’s sister, Shiva, is in a much different financial position and living with a boyfriend who treats her badly. As May gets to know Shiva better, she finds out that this boyfriend, Cody, is also Shiva’s pimp, and doesn’t seem to care very much for her safety. May feels the need to get involved, and tries to help by giving Shiva money, giving her a place to stay when she can’t go home to Cody. She tries to convince her to leave him for good but, the longer the situation goes on, the less it looks like there’s going to be a peaceful solution.

May’s interaction with Shiva is complicated by the fact that her business and romantic partner, Dex, doesn’t think they should get involved in the drama unfolding between two people they don’t really know, as well as by the fact that Shiva doesn’t always tell the truth. In the end, though, May has to decide whether she really believes in ahimsa – the principles of nonviolence at the core of her spiritual beliefs and practice – to the point of letting someone else get killed.

Spoilers, but the final act involves a lot more guns.

Bleeding Heart

I get what Bleeding Heart’s trying to do, and I think it’s really interesting, even if I don’t always buy the execution.

At its core, the story is about a really specific, new age hypocrisy in which we claim to heal ourselves and the world by ignoring the harsh realities and difficult choices less fortunate people face. The key conflict in Bleeding Heart isn’t between Shiva and Cody or May and Cody or Shiva and May – it’s between May and Dex. May wants to help Shiva even though she doesn’t know her very well, even though it makes her life difficult, and even though Shiva might not even be her sister – Dex wants Shiva to go away and stop disrupting his positive energy. He’d rather use his and May’s money to build a new yoga studio than help Shiva pay her rent, and the point he brings up, over and over again, is, “This doesn’t have to be our problem.”

Bleeding Heart plays May and Dex against each other to show us how May’s choices reflect a conscious move away from the beliefs she held at the start of the film – a move toward an understanding that there’s a kind of arrogance in preaching nonviolence to people who live in real physical danger. She’s struggling with the idea of what it really means to help someone, and whether it’s enough to say that she helps people by teaching yoga practice. Ultimately, she finds that the only way to make a difference in the world is to do things she never thought she would do – she finds that there are some situations where nonviolence just isn’t an option.

May’s personal journey comes across really well in the film, so I was disappointed that the other characters seemed a lot less rounded in comparison. Dex is so self-centered that he can’t even process the concept that May might care about something else in addition to the yoga studio. When May tells him that she wants to take a day off work to meet Shiva for the first time – having hired private detectives to search for her for months or years – he tells her that meeting Shiva will probably be emotional for her and distract her from the business for more than a day, so she shouldn’t go yet. Even taking into account that he’s supposed to be a hypocrite, I find it hard to believe that he would just casually tell his partner to blow off meeting a long-lost, long-sought relative to focus on building a new yoga studio. Just like I find it hard to believe later on that he completely doesn’t care that Shiva’s boyfriend is abusive, even if he doesn’t want to be involved.

It’s part of a larger pattern in the film where the details of the characters’ motivations don’t ring true and drain some of the power from the story. It often feels like Dex, Cody, and Shiva make their choices based on what the plot demands of them, so that May can learn something new and grow as a person.

Aside from that, the cinematography is gorgeous and Mamet and Biel are both stretching themselves as actors, which is fun to watch. I especially gained a new appreciation for Mamet – she’s so good at making her lines sound like something she just came up with that it’s easy to forget how much skill that really takes. There are times in Bleeding Heart when she doesn’t have a lot to work with but definitely makes the most of it.


You can find Bleeding Heart on DVD and VOD in North America and the UK, where it goes by the name Bound by Blood.

Also on Bitch Flicks: Paula Schwartz interviews director Diane Bell about Bleeding Heart


Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

Nine Pretty Great Lesbian Vampire Movies

Almost unfailingly exploitative in its portrayal of queer women, this specific sub-genre of film stands alone in a few ways, not the least of which being that the vampires, while murderous and ultimately doomed, are powerful, lonely women, often living their lives outside of society’s rules.


This guest post by Sara Century appears as part of our theme week on Violent Women.


Vampires. Lesbians. These two things are as intertwined as the stars and the sky, at least in popular fiction. The vampire lesbian sub-genre finds its basis in an unfinished poem by Coleridge 1797-ish, and continuing onward and up to the modern era with entries such as 2010 German film We Are the Night, and beyond. There are hundreds of lesbian vampire stories in the world, and very few of them deviate from the basic plot of the 1872 novella Carmilla by Joseph Le Fanu. You can just read that story and you’ll have the basic gist: lesbian vampire seduces straight woman, is murdered by men. If that sounds like a flimsy plot excuse for violence against women, that’s because that is 1,000 percent what it is. On the other hand, if there’s hundreds of anything, at least a few of them are bound to be good. I personally have a pretty strong love for lesbian vampire films, which, for better or worse, helped me to define my own images of sexuality as a young gay. Almost unfailingly exploitative in its portrayal of queer women, this specific sub-genre of film stands alone in a few ways, not the least of which being that the vampires, while murderous and ultimately doomed, are powerful, lonely women, often living their lives outside of society’s rules. And I love everything about that… except the part where they’re all mass murderers. When there is so little representation of powerful queer women in film, it becomes difficult to fully dismiss the few that exist, even if they are ultimately negative or problematic.

For all these reasons, I felt a need to compile a list of lesbian vampire films that impacted me in some way, or that I found particularly enjoyable to watch. Without further ado, my nine favorite lesbian vampire films.


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9. The Moth Diaries – 2011

I liked this one. It’s a little meta, in that the girl is reading and narrating the short story Carmilla while in a movie based on the short story, Carmilla. If you can handle that, you’ll be pretty down with most of this film. There’s no organ music, which is a solid fail on the part of many films, but it’s from a female writer/director team, and I don’t think it gets enough props for being as enjoyable as it is. Lily Cole is impressively creepy as Ernessa, the Carmilla analog of the film. The main character Rebecca is immediately distrustful of Ernessa, but her friend Lucy (yep) falls under Ernessa’s sway. And so on, and so forth. There’s some pretty disturbing stuff in here: suicide features prominently in the story, the general lack of consent during sex scenes that you often see in lesbian vampire movies is definitely in there, and Rebecca makes out with her teacher, which freaks me out more than most of the rest of the movie. My critique would be that, as meta as the story gets, it never really resolves any of the questions it asks itself. There’s little in the way of socially relevent commentary here, which seems odd for a film that immediately opens a gaping hole in the fourth wall and then leaves it there for the entire course of the narrative. That said, I like this film’s self-awareness, and there’s definitely a few creepy moments that are worth the price of admission.


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8. Blood and Roses – 1960

This movie makes a lot of “best of” lists, mostly because it was the first lesbian vampire film that explicitly expressed the queerness of its main character in no uncertain terms. We see a lot of what would ultimately become alternately beloved and maligned tropes of the genre: the love triangle, the arty dream sequence in the middle of the narrative, the bizarre similarity of a character to a portrait of a long-dead ancestor, and the sexually confused girlfriend character.

Our vampire Carmilla’s sexual agency, as well as her frustration, are equally compelling. She flirts with her crushes, and is upset by their rejection of her. She feeds on village girls after playing with them like a cat with a mouse. She is clearly doomed from the very moment she first appears onscreen, and yet, for all these reasons, she’s by far the most interesting character in the film.

What Blood and Roses said to me when I watched it as a young queer woman could be a much longer piece of writing, but, briefly, these images were among the first moments of queer visibility in North American cinema. As problematic as they are, they deserve analysis, and they deserve to be considered for their impact on both queer and straight audiences of their time. Besides all that, though, Blood and Roses is a campy and fun horror film from the 1960s, so if that sounds up your alley, definitely check it out.


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7. Daughters of Darkness – 1971

In the 1970s, there was a fad in horror films where privileged, angry men with Beatles hair and snappy wardrobes were the main characters of pretty much every single movie. That’s going strong here, where the main character looks exactly like this:

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Wowza. Anyway, the real main character is obviously not that guy, but this extremely fictionalized version of Elizabeth Bathory, at this point hundreds of years old, played by the wonderfully over-the-top Delphine Seyrig. Delphine has a respectable history in art house films of the 1970s, and worked with several of the best directors of her day. She seems to have great fun with the hypersexualized Bathory, and the whole film gets much more interesting when she shows up. The beginning of the movie is just the straight couple getting married and talking a lot, so bring on the lesbian vampires, my friends. Can I just say, as messed up as she is, Bathory is just shockingly beautiful through this whole movie. All of her outfits are the best outfits I have ever seen, and she is my style icon from here to eternity. Also perfectly fashionable, her vampire sidekick, whose simple style and bobbed hair are based on the glorious silent film star, Louise Brooks. I’m just letting you know, this movie rules. Persistent themes of the sexually aggressive and sadistic vampire focusing on the confused, flippant blonde woman are in full force here, and I would say this portrayal of the ancient and wicked lesbian vampire character is one of the more fascinating.


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6. The Countess – 2009

This film is about Countess Elizabeth Bathory, widely considered to be one of the most sadistic mass murderers of all time. I say “considered to be” because, to be honest, nobody has the slightest damn idea what actually happened there. Was she a mass murderer? Probably? People were not keeping extensive records of this sort of thing in 1610, and, in fact destroyed all evidence of wrongdoing to prevent a scandal. She was of royal blood, and therefore never went to trial. What I’m saying is that all the information currently available surrounding this case is strongly based in rumor. Still, she is the person on whom much of Western World vampire mythology is based on, so if anyone has the right to be on a list about lesbian vampires, it’s the countess. The story follows the legends of what we believe to be true about her life, and carries us all the way through to her bitter end, with the entirely fictional subplot of a doomed affair with a younger man. I wasn’t personally that into the added love story of the film, but it definitely sets up some of the creepiest scenes in the whole movie, so I’ll allow it. This movie was done by Julie Delpy, who both directs and stars as Bathory, like a boss. Honestly, this film is just flat out better made than anything else on the list in concern to production values, budget, and acting skill, so if you’re into watching something less campy and more real, this is the one for you.


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5. The Blood Spattered Bride – 1972

This movie starts with one of my least favorite opening scenes of all time, but if you can get through the weird rape fantasy that kicks it off, the feminist commentary actually gets really interesting as the movie goes along. The tale follows two newlyweds, Susan and her nameless husband, who exists not so much as a character, but as a representation of director Vincente Aranda’s perception of the fascist patriarchy. He comes across about as likeable as a fascist patriarchy, too, more or less crying a river every time his wife doesn’t respond to his aggressive sexual advances. A great portion of this film is Susan progressing through the story arc tropes of most major feminist characters of the 1970s: bride, to unhappy bride, to lesbian, to misandrist, to murderer. That said, honestly, I don’t really blame her, because she is literally married to the human embodiment of misogyny. As an audience member, you’ll find yourself rooting for this guy’s death pretty hard I think, so I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be married to him. She literally locks herself in a cage to get away from him, uses quotes from a book to tell him she hates him, and finally flies into a full-out screaming fit that, let’s be real, is not entirely unprovoked. So, when the dreamy and beautiful Carmilla shows up in a totally bizarre scene that I’m not even going to describe right now because you should just watch it, it’s obvious that Susan is about to get straight up seduced. When your options are “man you hate who borderline rapes you a lot” or “ghostly vampire with really pretty eyes that tells you to kill your legitimately terrible husband,” I guess I’d probably go with the latter, too. I mean, let’s be real, the third option of “get the Hell out of there” is the only real option, but if she did that, there’d be no movie, so spree of murder and terror with dreamy girlfriend it is. To the credit of the film, Susan is a very interesting character. She ultimately goes the really wrong direction with it, but her feminist theory begins in a good place. Societal loathing of queer women ultimately causes her to snap when she realizes that, as a lesbian, the world will punish her sexuality and turn her into a pariah. That is a totally legit concerns for 1972. Susan is by far the best and most interesting part of this film, which is otherwise mostly a campy horror film with unsettling moments of sexual violence and the familiar art house dreaminess of most of the films on this list.


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4. The Hunger – 1983

The Hunger is one of the more famous entries in the lesbian vampire canon, so, if you’ve seen one movie on this list, the law of averages would imply that it’d be this one. The beginning of this movie finds David Bowie as John Blaylock and Catherine Deneuve as Miriam Blaylock in a goth club watching Bauhaus. They are vampires, swinger vampires. They pick up another Goth couple and kill them with a tiny blade kept inside the ankh (yes, ankh) Miriam keeps around her neck.

It. Is. Nine. Teen. Eighty. Three. As. Fuck. Right. Now.

There’s a lot of cool stuff in this movie. It’s really well shot, Catherine Deneuve is pretty much the greatest actor on the planet, the soundtrack rules, and David Bowie… just, David Bowie. This film also has one of the most famously great lesbian sex scenes in cinema history. Miriam and Susan Sarandon’s character, Dr. Sarah Roberts, hook up for the first time (only time? I don’t know) to the most lesbian song EVER, aka “The Flower Duet” from Léo Delibes’ opera Lakmé. “Sounds like a love song,” says Sarah. “Then I suppose that’s what it is,” says Miriam. You bet it is, Miriam! Moments later, those two are making out. Another slight alteration on the standard lesbian vampire tropes is that Dr. Roberts, the supposed victim of the film, is the one that initiates sex, here, rather than, as we so often see in film, the vampire preying on a human’s naiveté and weakness.

Sticking well within queer tropes, however, Miriam is honestly a real U-Haul vampire, and waits all of 10 seconds after John’s death before she tries to marry Sarah pretty much out of nowhere. We are talking about someone that has an eternity ahead of her that can’t even wait like a month after her husband’s “death” before she starts moving her girlfriend in. Which is cold as Hell, because they were married for something like 300 years. Well, I don’t want to spoil the twists and turns this story takes for y’all, so I guess I’ll cut myself off there, but, more or less, this movie is famous for a reason, and if you’re in the mood to watch a scary film that is just the most ’80s thing you’ve seen in your life, this is likely going to be your best option.


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3. Nadja – 1994

I feel like this film gets overlooked by both the vampire crowd as well as the indie crowd, and it’s kind of a shame, since it has all the requirements of being a cult classic. There’s nothing particularly new in this film, but there’s a lot to like about it. The creepy vampire as played by Elina Lowensohn really sells the film. She’s one of my all time faves. The cinematography is really great, and the film looks just stunning in black and white. Especially interesting is the use of a child’s toy camera for some scenes, lending a simple, stylized perspective at key moments. There’s a lot of pretty amusing mid-90s, Generation X style soul-searching from the white, heterosexual couple at the center of the film, as well as some genuinely on point observations on the human condition from the impressively coherent vampires. As many of these films are products of their time, I must say that Nadja is about the most 1994 film you’re liable to watch in your life. Instead of the standard skintight dress fluttering softly in the wind, the female love interest of the vampire is wearing a straight up flannel shirt and jeans, and if she had slight stubble I would definitely mistake her for Kurt Cobain. At certain moments, the film looks and sounds a bit like a music video for a Portishead song, but the aesthetic is pulled off to perfection, and it really works. The overall stylishness of Nadja has only aged for the better in the two decades since its release.


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2. Vampyros Lesbos – 1971

This is where I start to get emotional. Vampyros Lesbos features my favorite opening to a film probably ever, with a bizarre shot of the vampire accompanied by noise music as the credits roll, followed immediately by our hero, the vampiric Nadine Carody, doing an erotic dance in a mirror with herself. She kisses herself in the mirror while holding a candlebra, while a blond-haired mannequin watches her. Ultimately, the countess turns, and begins kissing the mannequin, while her future lover Linda Westinghouse looks on, as intrigued as her mustached boyfriend is uncomfortable. The whole time, one of my all-time favorite songs is playing, a dark, dreamy song with an irrestistably basic Hammond organ pre-recorded drumbeat and chilling yet seductive organ sounds. And that is how you start a movie, everyone. You now have my full attention. Vampyros Lesbos is honestly just a flawless victory. It’s over-the-top, set very much with a psychedelic backdrop, and Soledad Miranda is absolutely enchanting as the countess. The comparatively less interesting “girlfriend” character Linda Westinghouse is really great in this movie. Her acting is stilted, but it works perfectly for this agonized and hestitant character, who is as attracted as she is repelled by the beautiful vampire. What I’m getting at here is that Vampyros Lesbos is a great movie (greatest movie?), and well worth your time if you’re a horror fan, a lesbian fan, an art house fan, or basically anyone (who is over the age of 18). Yes, this film is just as exploitative to queer women as any other lesbian vampire movie, but if you just focus on the intriguing, mysterious countess and her compelling monolgues, the brilliant soundtrack, and the beautifully shot and haunting love scenes between Linda and Nadine, you’ll do OK.


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1. Fascination – 1979

The No. 1 spot is a tie between Vampyros Lesbos and Fascination, because I definitely love both equally, but loving things equally is not how internet listicles work, so Fascination it is. I’ve seen dozens of lesbian vampire films, but there’s something about this one. It doesn’t just slightly deviate from the tropes, it starts with a weird premise, introduces multiple tropes, and then just goes completely off the rails with them, until it concludes on a note that could only be described as utterly bizarre. To me, adding art house weirdness to horror films just makes a good thing even better, so I find Fascination to be delightful, haunting, and aesthetically beautiful. The movies of Jean Rolin are often about vampires, definitely well within the realm of art house cinema, and always highly eroticized. Fascination in specific has a just bananas plot trajectory: it pretty much starts with a whole lot of lesbian sex, which then becomes straight sex, which then goes back to being lesbian sex. They’re kind of vampires, or not? One of the main characters terrorizes the countryside with a scythe, there’s a coven of witches, someone gets devoured alive… it is goddamned epic. I especially love the characters, despite how weird and evil they all are. I particularly love the character of Eva, who is very much a problematic favorite, in that pretty much every action she takes in the film ends with her committing murder at some point. The scenery is gorgeous, the cinematography is simple and beautiful, the actors seem like they’re having fun… it’s all in all a perfect 1970s horror film.

 


Sara Century is a multimedia performance artist, and you can follow her work at saracentury.wordpress.com

On Breathing, Not Breathing, and Forms of Abuse That We Don’t Have the Words to Express

‘Breathe,’ the second feature-length film from French actor and director Mélanie Laurent, offers an unusually nuanced portrait of abusive relationships – specifically through the lens of a toxic friendship between two teenage girls.


Written by Katherine Murray.


Breathe, the second feature-length film from French actor and director Mélanie Laurent, offers an unusually nuanced portrait of abusive relationships – specifically through the lens of a toxic friendship between two teenage girls.

breathe

Based on a YA novel of the same name, Breathe (also known by its French title, Respire) follows an average, decently popular girl named Charlie as she is befriended and then betrayed by the exciting new girl at her school, Sarah. Sarah at first seems to be the perfect companion – her attention makes Charlie feel special, and they become close friends very quickly. As time goes on, though, and Sarah gets bored, her easy-going always-affable mask starts to slip, revealing an angry, demanding, hypercritical face underneath. Charlie, shocked by these changes, scared and uncomfortable, tries to figure out what she did wrong, why Sarah is acting this way, and what she can do to repair their relationship. When her efforts fail, Sarah gets more and more hostile, until their relationship reaches a jarring conclusion.

What makes Breathe so fascinating to watch is that it gets the nuances of abusive relationships right. Sarah honestly believes herself to be the victim in this friendship, and her confidence and sense of entitlement are enough to make Charlie question her own judgement. It isn’t that Sarah’s cold and calculating – she’s not the smooth-talking criminal mastermind that sociopaths are often portrayed to be – she’s just so self-absorbed that whether or not she hurts someone else isn’t a blip on her radar. She gets closer to Charlie whenever she wants something, and callously disregards her feelings again once she has it.

In the film’s most notable sub-plot, Charlie’s mother is facing a similar situation with her estranged husband. Outside observers keep telling her he’s just an asshole, but she argues that he’s never hit her, so she can forgive him for all the emotional abuse. Charlie finds herself acting out the same scenario with Sarah – forgiving her, even once Sarah’s made it clear that she isn’t a friend, trying to explain why Sarah is this way – feeling pity and compassion for her, because of her terrible home life – trying to be the bigger person and move on. In both cases, it’s clear to the audience that these relationships should end, but the question Breathe holds out to us is “Why don’t they?” Why are Charlie and her mother so unwilling to cut these ties; why don’t they just walk away? Why don’t we have the right words to talk about abuse when it doesn’t involve physical violence?

breathe3_thumb

The performances from Joséphine Japy and Lou De Laâge as Charlie and Sarah are what make the movie. Breathe is, for the most part, about subtle forms of emotional abuse – about how the way you say something carries a message; the way Sarah teaches Charlie not to have boundaries by turning a few degrees cooler every time she encounters one; the way she uses a condescending tone to say things that aren’t true. I wouldn’t go so far as to call the movie understated, but it’s patient and careful in the work it’s trying to do, and so are its actors. Even though the story moves forward quite slowly, we’re drawn in by the characters – we want to understand what’s going on between them almost just as much as Charlie does.

Laurent’s similarly patient direction creates an effectively dark mood, like storm clouds gathering on the horizon – something that’s also captured in the international trailer. It’s not accurate to say that this is a world you want to live inside, as you’re watching, but it’s a world that’s interesting enough that you’ll want to sit with it and watch events play out.

One of the issues the film grapples with well is what constitutes bad behaviour – at what point you can accuse someone of having wronged you – and its subtlety and ambiguity plays into that. Often, our standard for whether someone has done something wrong lies in whether they’ve done something they didn’t have the legal right to do, but so much of human interaction is subjective that it isn’t (and can’t be) a crime to be mean to someone. It would be very hard for Charlie to objectively demonstrate that Sarah’s behaviour is harmful – that all the little things Sarah does have damaged her in some way – but we can see very plainly, watching this friendship play out, that Sarah is slowly destroying Charlie’s entire life. We can see very plainly that she’s doing something wrong, though it may be hard to say what it is.

There’s also a sense in which, watching this film as an adult, you want to say, “OK, she’s not your friend. Move on,” but that would be missing the point. Breathe is about exploring relational dynamics that we don’t have a framework for talking about – it’s about following the characters into a murky area full of confused and conflicted emotions, and watching how that confusion works against Charlie to stop her from just dumping Sarah and walking away. If I’m honest, there was certainly a time in my life when I also believed – as Charlie seems to believe – that someone had to do something objectively wrong in order for me to decide we weren’t friends. It couldn’t just be because I felt bad when we were together.

Breathe, like many YA stories, is a bit like watching someone wrestle with life problems I’ve already solved, but it’s also an important attempt to articulate those problems in an understandable way – to bring them out into the open and give us a new lens to see them through, and a new touchstone that we can use to discuss them.

If you want to feel uncomfortable in a good way and sink inside this insightful, carefully-constructed film, Breathe opens in New York on Friday, Sept. 11, and in Los Angeles on Sept. 18.

 


Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV (both real and made up) on her blog.

 

 

‘Miss Julie’ Is My Very Worst Date, Nineteenth Century Style

It’s hard to avoid the sense that this is a story about how the rich are in decline – how complacency has made them helpless and weak enough for the poor to pull them down. It’s hard to know if we’re supposed to think that John has the right idea by using Julie as a stepping stone to move toward his goals – if we’re supposed to think she deserves what she gets because she was stupid and drunk and coming onto him. The play seems to think so – Chastain and Ullmann seem to disagree – the movie itself seems to be a confused mixture of the two viewpoints.


Written by Katherine Murray.


Now on DVD, Liv Ullmann’s adaptation of Miss Julie is a complicated, if not always very uplifting, exploration of the intersection between class and gender. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, there’s still a thin angry thread of hatred for women and poor people vibrating under the surface. Spoilers for a story that’s over a hundred years old.

Colin Farrell and Jessica Chastain act out the boot-kissing scene in Miss Julie
I promise you, this is even more sexual in context

 

Miss Julie is a pretty straight-forward story about class differences at the turn of the nineteenth century. Based on the 1888 play of the same name, the movie follows Julie, the daughter of a wealthy Baron, as she tries to seduce her father’s Valet, John. It isn’t a romance story – Julie and John don’t love each other. In fact, they kind of hate each other, but they’re two people who happen to be in close proximity, and they’re bored. Because it’s based on a one-room play, most of the action consists of watching two people argue with each other long past the point when most of us would walk away, and the drama consists mostly of trying to figure out which of them is The Worst.

The film moves through roughly four stages, marked by unexpected changes in John’s behaviour.

In the first, and best, and most palpably uncomfortable stage. Julie sexually harasses John in a style I’d like to call 50 Shades of Awkward and Unpleasant. In Jessica Chastain’s portrayal, Julie pretends to be more confident than she is. She wants John to like her – she wants him to be infatuated with her – and, because he isn’t, she abuses her power over him by ordering him to behave as though he is. There’s a creepy and overtly sexual moment when she makes him start kissing her boots, but there are also much sadder and mundane requests. She makes him dance with her, bring her flowers, and offer her a glass of wine. And each time he grudgingly, angrily does any of these things, she smiles and thanks him as though it were his idea, trying hard to pretend that it was.

Even at this stage in the story, there’s a pitiable element to Julie’s power. It’s true that she can coerce John into doing whatever she wants him to do, but it’s also clear that she doesn’t know what she wants from him at all. John’s much more worldly, and, behind his clenched, contemptuous expression, we can tell that he sees her much more clearly than she sees herself. He’s annoyed mostly because she’s playing stupid, childish games with him – not because he feels threatened by her presence. There’s an uncomfortable vulnerability to Julie in these scenes, even on the first viewing, because we can see that she’s exposing all her weaknesses to John without knowing.

Jessica Chastain and Colin Farrell star in Miss Julie
The strangest part of the movie is the one, glittering moment when they seem to get along

 

The second stage of the story comes when John – quite suddenly, almost like he’s gotten fed-up and reached a breaking point – confesses that he’s actually in love with Julie. He has, in fact been madly, passionately in love with her for years, and that’s why it torments him so much when she teases him this way. Julie is surprised by this, but pleased, and there’s a bit of the normal Heathcliff what-will-your-family-think we-can-never-be-together stuff before they both cross a line and have sex.

In the third stage, John starts to look like a douchebag. He lies to and manipulates the kitchen maid he’s dating, and turns on Julie as soon as he has enough power to do so. Because she’s a woman, and this is 1888, she can’t ever tell anyone she had sex with a servant. Julie’s also afraid she might get pregnant, and she’s shocked that John would lie to her and pretend to be the perfect (which, in her eyes, means subservient) boyfriend just to get her into bed. John’s happy he wrecked her life and crows over the fact that she’s now just as gross as him. With the class barrier gone, he now has more power because of his gender, and he slut-shames her for, like, an hour in the middle of the movie. As Julie starts to get more panicked about what she’s done and what’s going to happen to her when everyone finds out, John tries to convince her that the only way to salvage the situation is to steal her father’s money and run away with him, so that he can start the business he’s always dreamed of. After a lot of coaxing, Julie goes along with this plan, but John changes his mind again.

In the final and shortest stage of the movie, the sun starts to rise and John sobers up and realizes that he’s been too ambitious for his own good. He doesn’t want to take the risk of running away with Julie anymore – he wants to stay in the comfortable little life he’s made for himself as the Baron’s servant. This is, after all, The Way of the World. Julie’s still in a state of total crisis, though, and he needs to stop anyone from finding out about what happened with her, so that he doesn’t lose his job. So, he convinces her to kill herself, and that’s the end.

Jessica Chastain sits at Colin Farrell's feet in Miss Julie
“The alternation of ascent and descent constitutes one of life’s main charms,” say Strindberg.

 

Miss Julie is really obviously interested in the intersection of class and gender – like, obvious to the point that Julie and John do a little bit of dream interpretation, discussing how they’re always climbing or falling in their sleep – but, because the author’s take on the situation is kind of horrible, it’s hard to tell where the movie comes down. If you don’t want to read Strindberg’s entire introduction to the play (which I am told is even more misogynist in its original version), suffice to say that John’s a special kind of Poor because he wants to be refined, but he’s still dirty and ignorant on the inside, and Julie is a man-hating half-woman who’s destroying the fabric of society because she doesn’t know her place.

It’s also not surprising that Chastain had a tough time with the idea that Julie kills herself because John tells her to. I have a tough time with that, too, and I’m not sure I buy her explanation that it’s ultimately empowering because Julie was suicidal all along and wanted John to help her self-destruct.

Director Liv Ullmann seems to want us to understand Julie not as a horrible deviant, but as a victim of her circumstance, reacting in an understandable way. The film opens with a sequence in which we watch a young Julie wander bored and alone through her father’s mansion, and implies that her interest in John is born from the same lack of playmates, coloured by a strange naiveté that comes from leading a sheltered life. (Chastain is also much older than Julie, making her awkwardness and innocence seem like a psychological outcome rather than the product of youth).

At the same time, it’s hard to avoid the sense that this is a story about how the rich are in decline – how complacency has made them helpless and weak enough for the poor to pull them down. It’s hard to know if we’re supposed to think that John has the right idea by using Julie as a stepping stone to move toward his goals – if we’re supposed to think she deserves what she gets because she was stupid and drunk and coming onto him. The play seems to think so – Chastain and Ullmann seem to disagree – the movie itself seems to be a confused mixture of the two viewpoints. This version of Miss Julie isn’t so much a reaction against or dialogue with the original as it is a faithful performance that tries to sneak in a more empathetic worldview around the sides. It’s very interesting, but I’m not sure it completely succeeds.

Aside from the movie’s weird politics, Chastain and Colin Farrell are both very interesting to watch, but it’s a long haul. I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s mostly two hours of people fighting in the kitchen. That’s something that doesn’t work as well without the visceral immediacy of a stage.

All in all, I’m not sorry I watched this, but I enjoyed the first leg of the story, which seemed to be uncomfortable on purpose, more than I enjoyed the last legs of the story, which seemed like the playwright’s ghost was giving us the finger.

 


Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies and TV (both real and made up) on her blog.

 

 

‘Seventeen Moments of Spring’: Stirlitz as Soviet, Female-authored Bond

Unlike Bond, who uses the dangers of his job as a pretext for casual flings with disposable women, Stirlitz holds himself longingly aloof from women to avoid endangering them. Unlike Bond, who is empowered by his “license to kill,” Stirlitz kills only once, and his victim is fully humanized. Finally, unlike Bond, Stirlitz’s cinematic image is the creation of a woman.

Viacheslav Tikhonov as Stirlitz, smoldering suppression and cigarettes
Viacheslav Tikhonov as Stirlitz, smoldering suppression and cigarettes

 


Written by Brigit McCone.


In August 1973, an estimated 80 million Soviet viewers were transfixed by the espionage drama of Seventeen Moments of Spring, emptying the streets during its broadcast. As a national hero, icy cool super-spy Stirlitz is rivaled only by James Bond. Like Bond, he originated in a series of novels, in his case by Yulian Semenov. However, where Bond’s spying represents a license to role-play, escaping everyday accountability, Stirlitz’s spying represents an emotionally draining and dehumanizing inauthenticity, reflecting everyday Soviet censorship culture. Unlike Bond, who sidesteps issues of inauthenticity on assignments by incompetently using his real name, Stirlitz’s “real” name (Maksim Maksimovich Isayev, which could be Jewish) is not even used by the show’s narration. Unlike Bond, who uses the dangers of his job as a pretext for casual flings with disposable women, Stirlitz holds himself longingly aloof from women to avoid endangering them. Unlike Bond, who is empowered by his “license to kill,” Stirlitz kills only once, and his victim is fully humanized. Finally, unlike Bond, Stirlitz’s cinematic image is the creation of a woman.

Director Tatiana Lioznova
Director Tatiana Lioznova

 

Official communist doctrines of gender equality meant that female directors like Tatyana Lukashevich and Tatiana Lioznova received more mainstream support than their Western counterparts. Seventeen Moments of Spring was a project of the Central Studio of Children and Youth Films, explaining the educational montages woven throughout, though Lioznova transcended her brief with a psychological depth that appealed to all ages (and genders). While Stirlitz could not be described as feminized, his emphasized sensitivity is a reaction against hypermasculine propagandist ideals, explaining his cult appeal.

Though women are marginalized in the show’s arena of Nazi high command, Lioznova never allows them to be forgotten. During an interrogation, the camera focuses on a female stenographer’s conflicted reaction. An educational montage pays tribute to the Red Army’s female soldiers, while another celebrates Edith Piaf and Paris, in defiance of Cold War oppositions. Pregnant, undercover radio operator Kate Rien, torn between duty and love, is celebrated for her “heroic emotions.” Her maternity raises the stakes, as in Lois Weber’s Suspense, but does not undermine her courage, resourcefulness, or political conviction. Though some feminists may be irritated by Lioznova’s use of Kate’s escalating maternity to define her heroism, she joins Fargo‘s Marge Gunderson as a rare screen depiction of a pregnant woman actively engaged in wider struggles. Stirlitz’s concern for supplying Kate with milk, his regular outings and chess games with the elderly and bereaved Frau Zaurich, and his care for a stray dog are incidental to the plot, but vital to his psychological health and heroic status. Lioznova suggests that a theoretical struggle on behalf of “the nation” is invalid without compassion for individuals, since “the nation is made up of people.”

In one of Lioznova’s trademark, lingering shots of wordless longing (see Three Poplars at Plyushchikha Street, a kind of Soviet Brief Encounter), Stirlitz’s Soviet superiors bring his wife to a Berlin bar, before he leaves for the Spanish Civil War. The two watch each other across the room, unable to risk contact. This flashback, which Lioznova insisted on over the objections of writer Semenov, is juxtaposed with the efforts of Gabi Nabel to become intimate with Stirlitz at the end of WWII. Initially assumed to be the sweetheart of one of Frau Zaurich’s dead sons, Gabi’s solidarity with Frau Zaurich is instead based on simple, Bechdel-friendly compassion, bonding after Gabi’s house was bombed. Gabi and Stirlitz share a lingering dance, but he gently rejects her, emphasizing the impossibility of intimacy in his position. Later, a sex-crazed female mathematician will drunkenly proposition Stirlitz, with a comical lack of success (though Stirlitz’s swearing “on [his] life” to return to her, while making his escape, is mistranslated as an out-of-character “may you drop dead”) before Stirlitz struggles to write home, unwilling to burden his estranged wife with declarations of love. Stirlitz’s desirability is embodied in this placing of women’s well-being before his own needs. Personal conflict dominates over political intrigue at the show’s poignant finale. Though Lioznova’s protagonist is masculine, his heroism is defined primarily through his empathetic relationship to the feminine, the elderly, and children.

Pastor Schlagg: "The nation is made up of people. So, you eliminate people in the name of the nation."
Pastor Schlagg: “The nation is made up of people. So, you eliminate people in the name of the nation.”

 

Stirlitz’s allies are a librarian who prefers humanist Greeks to imperial Romans, and a pacifist pastor. These characters can be read as protesting Soviet authoritarianism as much as Nazism. In the words of writer Semenov: “the secret of Stirlitz’s longevity is explained not only by his charm and intelligence, but by the fact that I chose for him to remain outside the system after 1921, and to serve (while remaining patriotic) not the system as it is, but the ideal of struggle against fascism.” When the show’s fictional Stalin says of Nazi high command: “the closest associates of the tyrant, being on the brink of downfall, will betray him to save their lives,” he subtly indicates the paranoia that fueled his own purges of close associates. Through her spy’s deep cover, Lioznova largely sidesteps communist propaganda to focus on the conflict between Stirlitz’s humanist sympathies and pressure to compromise himself in the interests of the (Nazi) state.

Similarly, Mikhail Romm’s 1948 The Russian Question focuses on the conflict between censorship culture and individual conscience, in the dilemma of (American) journalist Harry Hill, who strives to tell the (positive) truth about the Soviet Union, when threatened with unemployment and persecution by his (American) superiors. Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1950 Conspiracy of the Doomed was the first Soviet film to acknowledge the widespread famines that followed collectivization, blaming the (American) government for causing them, as well as condemning the (American) secret service’s maneuverings to undermine the sovereignty of the USSR’s neighbors. In 1969, after Soviet invasion had crushed Alexander Dubcek’s attempt to establish democratic “socialism with a human face” in Czechoslovakia, Moscow’s Taganka theatre staged Protect Your Faces, climaxing in Vladimir Vysotsky performing his individualist anthem “Wolf Hunt,” protesting (American) violence against the democratic leader (John F. Kennedy), while actors with mirrors showed audiences their own faces. The play was a sensation, and banned after three performances. In the sometimes patronizing Stalinism and Soviet Cinema, this phenomenon is defined as “social Freudianism,” an entire society’s projection of its suppressed self-image onto its enemies. Far from unconscious, however, “social Freudianism” exploits anti-capitalist and anti-fascist propaganda as permissible outlets for criticism, within a culture of “dancing with the censor” whose audience was adept at decoding subversive subtext.

Oleg Tabakov as Walther Schellenberg: horrifyingly likable Nazi
Oleg Tabakov as Walther Schellenberg: horrifyingly likable Nazi

 

This subtlety becomes immediately apparent when considering Seventeen Moments of Spring as anti-Nazi propaganda. Nazis feature in Western propaganda (a.k.a. pop culture) as evil caricatures and disposable cannon-fodder, but the Nazis of Seventeen Moments of Spring are intensely humanized and frequently sympathetic. As one of the film’s soulful Nazis puts it: “it’s easy to advise other people to be honest. But everyone personally tries to turn his dishonesty into honesty. To justify himself and his actions, so to speak.” Stirlitz’s Nazi counterpart, the mischievously machiavellian Walther Schellenberg, is introduced intimidatingly by his official report: “a true Aryan, of Nordic character, brave and firm… merciless towards the Reich’s enemies. An excellent family man… no discrediting liaisons.” When slavic, married Isayev (Stirlitz), is likewise defined as “a true Aryan, of Nordic character, self-possessed… Merciless towards the Reich’s enemies… Unmarried. No known discrediting liaisons,” we realize this information is unreliable. Gradually, as each of the film’s Nazis receives the banal description “a true Aryan, of Nordic character… merciless towards the Reich’s enemies,” it devolves into a deadpan joke at the expense of hollow official rhetoric. After the show’s broadcast, actor Oleg Tabakov received a letter from the real SS Commander Schellenberg’s niece, thanking him for bringing “Uncle Walther” to life with an apparently authentic performance.

Hitler’s henchmen are profiled in Stirlitz’s “information for pondering” with descriptions of their wives and families, followed by examples of their rhetoric dehumanizing enemies – Goering: “kill, kill and kill. Don’t think of the consequences,” Goebbels: “you should be cruel and merciless when it comes to those we’re fighting against,” Himmler: “we should be honest, decent and loyal only towards the representatives of our race.” Lioznova highlights Goering’s justification of an inhuman death camp as “what the nation wants,” implicitly contrasted with Pastor Schlagg’s definition of the nation as a collection of individuals. Schellenberg and Stirlitz will both reveal themselves shockingly desensitized, maintaining grim, gallows humor for the sake of their sanity. They muse together about their “true” personalities, discarded and stored for future use, like “coats in the wardrobe.” As Stirlitz catches himself thinking of Germany as “our country,” Seventeen Moments of Spring questions whether it is ever possible to play a role without becoming it. For Russian Jew Lioznova, who lost her family in the war, identifying with Germans and insistently humanizing Nazis is the ultimate rejection of their dehumanizing ideology, echoing Hannah Arendt’s philosophies.

The Cranes Are Flying
The Cranes Are Flying

 

The opening and closing images of the series are of Stirlitz, staring up at a formation of cranes. An iconic wartime song by Mark Bernes, “The Cranes Are Flying,” portrayed cranes as reincarnations of soldiers killed in battle. The Cranes Are Flying is also the title of the 1957 Palme d’Or winning masterpiece by Mikhail Kalatozov (I Am Cuba, Conspiracy of the Doomed), which explodes the romanticized mystique of anthems such as “Wait For Me” in its unflinching portrait of the brutal realities of wartime, centering the female experience of abandonment. Through his meditations on flying cranes, Stirlitz thus indicates his consciousness of the burden of his country’s sacrifices. Churchill, as Seventeen Moments of Spring reminds us, once telegramed that “future generations will recognize their debt to the Red Army as unconditionally as we… who were the witnesses of those great victories,” but it is now rarely emphasized in Western histories that 75 percent of Nazi casualties were inflicted on the Eastern front, along with an estimated 20 million Soviet deaths.

While triumphalist American images of WWII reflect their successful foreign war, the Soviet experience was national trauma, barely concealed by its rebranding as “Great Patriotic War.” Scars are markers of villainy in the creepily eugenic Bond franchise, but Lioznova lingers on scarred bystanders and the rubble of bombardment as testament to war’s destruction. The “always careful” Stirlitz’s iconic masculinity lies not in swaggering machismo, but in his willingness to admit the futility and insignificance of his role, his personal courage in the face of totalitarianism, and his compassion for suffering. Compare Vladimir Vysotsky, as the leading postwar icon of Soviet masculinity, in his open acknowledgement of the trauma of Stalinist purges, and of WWII’s devastation:

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOJ49PGMW_8″]

From the ticking clock of 24 to Bond’s grittier, morally conflicted reboots, the influence of Seventeen Moments of Spring can be seen throughout pop culture, but its emotional depth is unrivaled. By making audiences fear for the fate of every informer, and sympathize with the sacrificed humanity of every oppressor, Tatiana Lioznova arguably created the most profound spy story ever filmed. Depicting a complex world, where integrity is a compromise between loyalty and necessity, and how we behave defines who we become, Seventeen Moments of Spring is James Bond for grown-ups.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZTCoDMlL2k”]

 


Brigit McCone studied for a year in Moscow State University, writes and directs short films and radio dramas and is the author of  The Erotic Adventures of Vivica (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and rampant Russophilia.

 

‘Welcome to Me’ and the Trouble with Mental Illness Comedies

‘Welcome to Me’ is pitched as “woman wins the lottery and uses it to finance her own daytime talk show.” I interpreted this as “Joan Calamezzo: The Movie” and immediately added it to my to-watch list. What that quick summary fails to mention is that Kristen Wiig’s character Alice Klieg has borderline personality disorder, and that her decision to produce her talk show coincides with her going off her meds.

Kristen Wiig in 'Welcome to Me'
Kristen Wiig in Welcome to Me

At the end of her now-legendary Tonight Show interview as Daenerys Targaryen, it is revealed Kristen Wiig is there to promote Welcome to Me, pitched as “woman wins the lottery and uses it to finance her own daytime talk show.” I interpreted this as “Joan Calamezzo: The Movie” and immediately added it to my to-watch list. What that quick summary fails to mention is that Kristen Wiig’s character Alice Klieg has borderline personality disorder, and that her decision to produce her talk show coincides with her going off her meds. Yes, Welcome to Me is in the perilous genre of the mental illness comedy. Is it the Silver Linings Playbook for borderline personality disorder or another Blue Jasmine offering a vague Blanche DuBois-esque mélange of symptoms in lieu of actual characterization? Welcome to Me falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

A very special episode of 'Welcome to Me'
A very special episode of Welcome to Me

On her show, Alice describes her history of mental health diagnoses: manic depression, rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, and most recently, borderline personality disorder. As a mentally ill person myself, I nodded my head along to the ever-changing labels psych patients keep up with. But borderline personality disorder is outside my personal mental health history, and I know very little about it. I don’t even “know” anything about it from Hollywood; the only other borderline character I could think of was Winona Ryder in Girl, Interrupted, and that film strongly challenges the appropriateness of that diagnosis. So I cannot tell you if Welcome to Me “gets borderline personality disorder right” (but here are some articles that address that question, each with different conclusions).

Alice delivering one of her 'prepared statements' on television
Alice delivering one of her “prepared statements” on television

Whether or not Alice is a fair representation of borderline personality diorder, she is a clearly realized character. Wiig plays her with a flat affect most of the time, somewhat interpersonally detached and awkward, and either unaware or uninterested in social decorum (her “prepared statement” after her lottery win begins, “I was a summer baby born in 1971 in Simi Valley, California, and I’ve been using masturbation as a sedative since 1991”). But Alice’s emotions are easily and erratically triggered in ways that leave deep wounds, evidenced by her talk show segments re-enacting small slights from her past, like a friend swiping some of her makeup. Alice’s personal take on her condition becomes clear when she reflects on “all the times in my life when I was supposed to feel something but I felt nothing, and all the other times in my life where I wasn’t supposed to feel anything but I felt too much and the people around me weren’t really ready for all of my feelings.”

Alice has an emotional breakdown on the set of her talk show.
Alice has an emotional breakdown on the set of her talk show.

 

While the writing and acting create a consistent vision of Alice, it is one wholly defined by her mental illness.  She’s not a person, she’s a DSM-V checklist. So it is impossible to relate to her character, even as a mentally ill person myself.

And it becomes very hard to watch Welcome to Me as a comedy because laughing at Alice feels cruel.  She is taken advantage of by the small-town tv station that airs her show, who keep telling her they need more money because she’ll robotically write them checks until she’s spent nearly all her fortune. Her therapist (Tim Robbins) is condescending and callous. And when people ARE kind to Alice (like her best friend Gina [Linda Cardellini] and her co-worker and occasional lover Gabe [Wes Bentley]), we see her hurt them terribly through her own self-involvement and volatility.  It is a very sad story. The absurdity of the talk show in the center stops being funny and becomes tragic. And not being able to laugh at Kristen Wiig riding a “swan boat” onto stage while she sings her own theme song is just a waste.

No one wants meatloaf cake
No one wants meatloaf cake

Welcome to Me offers the ingredients of a good drama about mental illness and a good comedy about a low-budget vanity talk show, but combined this comes out like the meatloaf “cake” with sweet potato “frosting” that Alice presents on her show.  It’s unpleasant and you wonder why anyone would make it in the first place.


Robin Hitchcock is a writer based in Pittsburgh. If she had her own TV show, she would hire a professional to sing the theme song.

Where Are All the Female Anti-Heroes?

As I sit writing this post, it’s 6 a.m. I’m up early not by choice but because my internal alarm clock has gone off three hours early. Usually when this happens, it’s because of two reasons: I’ve fallen asleep drunk and it’s my beer alarm, or I’m extremely anxious about something. In today’s case, it’s Day 21 of my Kickstarter campaign for my first feature film.


This is a guest post by Christina Choe.


As I sit writing this post, it’s 6 a.m. I’m up early not by choice but because my internal alarm clock has gone off three hours early. Usually when this happens, it’s because of two reasons: I’ve fallen asleep drunk and it’s my beer alarm, or I’m extremely anxious about something. In today’s case, it’s Day 21 of my Kickstarter campaign for my first feature film. 

Seeing my struggling artist friends, my friends’ mothers, former collaborators, and strangers donating to my film has been extremely moving. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in, asking people for money so you can make your dreams a reality. And perhaps a very American concept. Like my immigrant mom says, “People in Korea only give you money if it’s a funeral or a wedding.”

During the lulls of the campaign, I’ve definitely thought to myself, I’m totally insane. Why am I putting myself through this masochistic process? Today, I was comforted by Robert DeNiro’s NYU commencement speech:

“When it comes to the arts, passion should always trump common sense. You weren’t just following dreams, you were reaching for your destiny. You’re a dancer, a musician, a filmmaker, a photographer, an actor, an artist. Yeah, you’re fucked.”

It’s hilarious but brutally true. As an artist we have to rely on our passion to keep going. As a Korean-American growing up in a small all white town in New Jersey, I didn’t know anybody pursuing the arts. I was also the black sheep in my family, who came to this country for the American Dream and wanted me to be a doctor or lawyer.

I chose the irrational. I also chose to tell stories about outsiders, because of some deep need to connect to others through cinema. While getting my MFA at Columbia University, I wrote/directed several shorts that screened around the world (Telluride, SXSW, Slamdance, Rooftop Films, etc). From The Queen, a film about a Korean-American teen coming out at his parents’ dry cleaners, to I am John Wayne, about a young Black cowboy grieving his best friend’s death, I’ve been lucky to connect with audiences with my films. That’s truly what keeps me going.

Since making those shorts, I’ve been working on making my debut feature. The script, NANCY, is a gripping, psychological drama about a female imposter who lies to gain emotional intimacy. The film is inspired by the literary hoax of JT Leroy, Fredreic Bourdin (The Imposter documentary), the fake blogger, “A Gay Girl in Damascus,” and my own former writing professor who turned out to be a fraud.

Nancy is a woman on the edge of society. She yearns for emotional connection through lying. She is morally ambiguous, charming, disturbing, and complex, in the vein of many male anti-hero characters we love like Travis Bickle, Walter White, Tony Soprano, etc.

As many of us already know, female filmmakers are still a minority and as a result, there are fewer complex female protagonists on screen. For female filmmakers of color the statistics are even more dismal. But I truly believe with a village of supporters, this film will be made.

We have seven days left! Please consider donating to our campaign and spreading the word to your friends! We have awesome female director tote bags as Kickstarter rewards.

Untitled

 


Christina Choe is an award winning filmmaker. She has received funding from New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), Jerome Foundation, and Canada Arts Council for the Arts. Her short films, The Queen, Flow, and I am John Wayne, have screened at film festivals around the world, including: Telluride, SXSW, Slamdance (Grand Jury Prize), Los Angeles Film Festival, Aspen Shorts Fest, and Rooftop Film Festival. Her films have been featured on VICE, Hammer to Nail and Vimeo Staff Picks.

In 2012, she was invited to the Berlinale Talent Campus and The MacDowell Colony. In 2013, she was selected as one of two fellows for the HBO/DGA Directing Fellowship, shadowing directors on Girls, Boardwalk Empire, and Looking.

She received an M.F.A from Columbia University for writing/directing and is currently in development for her first feature, NANCY, which was selected for Emerging Storytellers at IFP Project Forum, Venice Biennale College Cinema Program, the Hamptons International Film Festival Screenwriter’s Lab, Film Independent’s Fast Track & Directing Lab. In 2015 she received the Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Filmmaker at the Spirit Awards.

 

 

The Fresh Slice of Life of ‘Ackee & Saltfish’

Friendship between women has been depicted in an array of illustrious shapes in our pop culture. Who hasn’t seen the indelible images of Thelma and Louise, Cher and Dionne, Romy and Michelle, Leslie and Anne? The new kids on the block that will nestle themselves into our cultural lexicon are: Olivia and Rachel. British humor is revered and known for blending dark humor with peculiar physical comedy, but try listing at least three films off the top of your head that are focused on the Black British experience and black British humor; you’ll likely come up short. However, there’s now ‘Ackee & Saltfish,’ a witty step forward in closing the gap.

Rachel (left) and Olivia (right)
Rachel (left) and Olivia (right)

 


This is a guest post by Giselle Defares.


Friendship between women has been depicted in an array of illustrious shapes in our pop culture. Who hasn’t seen the indelible images of Thelma and Louise, Cher and Dionne, Romy and Michelle, Leslie and Anne? The new kids on the block that will nestle themselves into our cultural lexicon are: Olivia and Rachel. British humor is revered and known for blending dark humor with peculiar physical comedy, but try listing at least three films off the top of your head that are focused on the Black British experience and black British humor; you’ll likely come up short. However, there’s now Ackee & Saltfish, a witty step forward in closing the gap.

The Jamaican-British director Cecile Emeke forged her own path of limitless creativity – outside the mainstream media – with her honest, humoristic storytelling. Another filmmaker who created her own niche is Issa Rae, who established an successful career out of her YouTube series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, that resulted in a deal with HBO for her TV pilot and a bestselling novel of the same name. While both managed to create space where the doors were closed that’s where the similarities end.

Emeke garnered the public’s attention via her “Fake Deep” poem, and through her phenomenal work on the Strolling docu-series. She has carved a safe space for young Black women and men to vent and offer their unique perspectives navigating the Western world whilst being Black. In an interview with The Washington Post, Emeke explained how she created her docu-series, saying, “Strolling was born out of a desire to capture and share intra-communal discussions within the black community in hopes of affirming others and relieving alienation. I started off capturing conversations with friends, but since Strolling has grown, the conversations have grown to include people all over the world. I’m aiming to touch every corner of the diaspora.” Those are lofty goals and it seems she’s about to fulfill them. Her work was selected by Tribeca N.O.W., which celebrates new online work of independent filmmakers, BBC Trending recently called her YouTube channel “young, British, witty and black.” The New York Times said her work was “rendered with a complexity and depth that is exhilarating to watch.” Not bad for someone who only picked up a camera at the start of 2014.

Rachel and Olivia enjoying life
Rachel and Olivia enjoying life

 

Ackee & Saltfish is set on a warm Sunday afternoon in East London where we follow Olivia (Michelle Tiwo) and Rachel (Vanessa Babirye) on their quest to find food – or to be precise – the traditional Caribbean dish Ackee and saltfish. The duo planned a lavish brunch but Rachel forgot to soak the saltfish overnight so now they’re on a serious mission to find an authentic plate of Ackee and saltfish. On their stroll through the city hilarity ensues and tensions rise when we follow the best friends on their holy quest to find their Caribbean takeaway. The short film is written and directed by Emeke.

Emeke allows the viewer to closely follow two best friends who talk about pop culture, love, classism, racism, and the world at large, but there’s no drama when it comes to boyfriends, drugs, or other redundant tropes that seem to be prevalent when it comes to modern films about the Black British experience – i.e. Adulthood, Kidulthood, Top Boy (TV).

It’s a double-edged sword when it comes to Black women and media–they are underrepresented but at the same time molded in archetypes that are damaging society’s perception of Black women. Think of the Strong Black Woman, Mammy, Jezebel, Video Vixen, and so on. What’s so refreshing about Ackee & Saltfish is that Emeke simply presents an alternative. Olivia and Rachel are two Black women who are just livin’ life.

There’s an excellent balance between the two characters. Olivia has a distinct personality: bubbly, brash, outspoken and quick with her sometimes insensitive quips while Rachel is more grounded, contemplative and not necessarily as interested in talking about socio-political issues. When Olivia is firing up about gentrification and cultural appropriation, Rachel sarcastically claps back with “Aww, did you learn some new words off Black Twitter today?” Her reaction reflects their different stances on the issues at hand. Whilst Olivia is ready to fight the status quo, Rachel succumbs to the fact that they can’t change the situation right away. For many, Olivia’s anger will seem justified but Emeke never portrays the characters being right or wrong. It’s up to the audience to form their own opinion.

Can we see Olivia and Rachel as carefree Black girls? Jamala Johns wrote in her article for Refinery29 on carefree Black girls: “By putting the word ‘carefree’ front and center, it’s making a statement that we don’t want to be solely defined by hardships and stereotypes so we can enjoy our lives as we please. Carefree should not be mistaken with careless.” So with that in mind, it’s refreshing to see Olivia and Rachel quibbling whether or not Olivia will find her own Common but they’re simultaneously aware of the issues surrounding religion, race, the social implications of gentrification in their neighborhood, and so much more. There are a couple of funny scenes where Olivia and Rachel riff off each other:

Olivia: “I want Solange to adopt me.”

Rachel: “Why?”

Olivia: “Well, think about it, Solange as a mother would be the most amazing thing in the world.”

Rachel: “Why?! How do you know that?”

Olivia: “Like, Julez is livin’. I’m trying to live with Julez.”

This and several other short scenes underline the depth of their friendship and the ease with which they talk to each other on the most mundane topics. Emeke gives us a glimpse into the private world that exists between two best friends. Often comparisons are made with the Comedy Central hit Broad City, or Pursuit of Sexiness by SNL’s Sasheer Zamata and Girl Code’s Nicole Bryer, where you also follow the lives of two 20-somethings in the big city, but you’ll find out that Ackee & Saltfish stands on its own.

The crux of the appeal of Ackee & Saltfish lies in the humor and the familiarity. The underlying layer of authenticity simmers throughout the film when you hear Olivia and Rachel throw quips back and forth. It’s like you can see them walking past you on the street, and you catch funny snippets of an intimate conversation where you want to chime in – but instead you’ll hold your tongue. The cinematography of the film is straightforward, sometimes Emeke uses soft focus, or slow, inquisitive zooms. Emeke narrows the story down to the classic unity of time, place, and action. The core of the film is a long walk, recorded in real time and the takes create the appearance that the scenes are off-the-cuff improvised, but in fact they’re carefully scripted and extensively rehearsed. It’s cinematic strolling at its best.

Ackee & Saltfish is a short film that consists of small events, many conversations, and a lot of friendship. It is a tribute to healthy female friendship between Black women, but also a film about pop culture, gentrification, classism, race and just two girls enjoying life. The narrative is not groundbreaking. Nevertheless, the natural chemistry between the leads, the sometimes uncontrollably witty scenes, dialogues and observations and richness of details carry the film with ease.

Just like the Caribbean dish, this short film will make you thirsty and crave for more. Luckily, you can now quench your thirst since Emeke followed the short format with a five-part series on YouTube where you can follow the everyday adventures of best friends Olivia and Rachel.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPu-DN58KuM”]

 

See also at Bitch Flicks: Ackee & Saltfish: There Are Other Narratives to Explore

 


Giselle Defares comments on film, fashion (law), and American pop culture. See her blog here.

Lauryn Hill Performs Signature Nina Simone Numbers at New York Premiere of ‘What Happened, Miss Simone?’ at the Apollo

Earlier on the red carpet, I mentioned to Garbus that Nina Simone is having a moment. Gina Prince-Bythewood has her protagonist sing “Blackbird” in ‘Beyond the Lights’ and Simone’s music seems to be getting a new audience as well. Garbus said, “It’s very interesting. You know I can’t explain that. I was in Starbucks this morning for half an hour and what was playing was Nina Simone. I guess we just needed her.”

S. Epatha Merkerson, Atallah Shabazz, Liz Garbus
S. Epatha Merkerson, Atallah Shabazz, Liz Garbus

 


This guest post by Paula Schwartz previously appeared at Showbiz 411 and is cross-posted with permission.


Lauryn Hill’s rousing performance following the screening of What Happened, Miss Simone? Monday evening at the Apollo Theater turned into a celebration and tribute to the genius and artistry of the musician/activist Nina Simone. The sensational evening was presented by Netflix and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. (The documentary will air on Netflix on Friday, June 26.)

Hill, who first performed at the Apollo at age 13 where she was booed for singing “Who’s Lovin’  You” off key, got a very different reception last night.

Dressed in a white halter-top and flared pants, Hill looked terrific, and even channeled the legendary singer; her outfit resembled an outfit Simone wore in a legendary performance featured in the documentary directed by Oscar nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus (The Farm: Angola, 1998).

Hill’s voice was raspy from some ailment mentioned by producer Jayson Jackson in his introduction before her set, but that that only made her voice sound even more like Simone’s baritone. In her nearly 50-minute set, Hill danced and swayed and sang signature Simone numbers.

Liz Garbus
Liz Garbus

 

The former Fugees singer opened with a moving rendition of “Ne Me Quitte Pas” and followed up with a dynamic version of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” She sang backed up by a full orchestra that included lush sounds of string instruments.

There were problems with the sound mix and some failed starts and stops, but Hill is a perfectionist and demanding bandleader and it all finally came together. For her next number she enthused, “We goin’ try to rap with this,” and Hill performed a new rap song inspired by Simone’s music.

Afterward she introduced the terrific Jazmine Sullivan with, “She can sing for the both of us tonight,” and added, “Watch this!”

Sullivan launched into Randy Newman’s 1977 song “Baltimore,” a tune Simone memorialized, which with Baltimore’s current problems could have been written today: “Man, it’s hard just to live. Oh, Baltimore. Man, it’s hard just to live, just to live.”

The song is included in a Simone tribute album timed to be released in conjunction with the documentary, which includes artists Hill, Common, Usher, Mary J. Blige, and Simone’s daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, a singer who also appears in the documentary and provides some of the film’s most poignant moments and insights into her mother’s life and career.

Usher
Usher

 

After Sullivan’s performance, Hill returned and ended on an even higher note, with her take of  “African Mailman.” The long instrumental showcased the band with solos by the drummer, violinist, and backup singer. But the program was all about Lauryn Hill and her channeling of Simone, and despite the crowd’s stomping and cheering as the show ended its nearly hour-long set, there was no encore.

As suggested by the title, What Happened, Miss Simone? the documentary portrays a musical genius, but also a troubled artist who often fell on hard times. Driven by her art and social activism, and constrained by racism and her own inner demons – Simone was diagnosed late in life with bipolar disorder – she was also controlled by an abusive husband/manager Andrew Stroud, a former cop. He furthered her career but also beat her. There are archival segments of the couple together and present-day interviews with Stroud, who did not attend the premiere. (Simone’s daughter, who is promoting her new album, also did not attend.)

Notable celebrities at the premiere included grandchildren and friends of Simone, along with her longtime musicians Al Schackman, Lisle Atkinson and Leopoldo Fleming. Atkinson, a bass player who played with Simone for five years, told me her legendary tantrums and difficulty as a performer were exaggerated and he never had a bad moment on stage with her. He told me he believed she would want to be remembered for her music.

Schackman, a guitarist with perfect pitch, performed with Simone throughout her career and his astute comments and obvious love and esteem for Simone provide for some of the film’s most perceptive and informative moments.

Jasmine Sullivan
Jasmine Sullivan

 

In her introduction from the stage to the film, Garbus thanked Netflix and all the contributors to the documentary and related a story from Simone’s memoir. “Friends say I might have trouble with the crowd here because the Apollo is well known for giving artists a rough time,” read Garbus from Simone’s notes. “And I’m well known for the same to audiences.” The audience laughed. “So the two of us getting together was looked at as a kind of championship boxing match with the Apollo as the champ and me as the contender. In the end we fought to a draw.”

From the time she was a girl of 3, Nina Simone aspired to be the first Black classical pianist. “That was all that was on my mind,” she said in an interview in the doc, where in archival footage she famously said of her political activism that often got her into hot water, “I don’t think you have a choice. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?”

Earlier on the red carpet, I mentioned to Garbus that Nina Simone is having a moment. Gina Prince-Bythewood has her protagonist sing “Blackbird” in Beyond the Lights and Simone’s music seems to be getting a new audience as well. Garbus said, “It’s very interesting. You know I can’t explain that. I was in Starbucks this morning for half an hour and what was playing was Nina Simone. I guess we just needed her.”

Speaking of her inspiration for the doc, Garbus said, “I’m a conduit to bringing her to audiences that didn’t know her before or giving her audience who loved her a little more of her. That’s a wonderful position to be in.”

Lauryn Hill
Lauryn Hill

 

The director noted that Simone is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century who had 15 ways of singing the same song. When she undertook the project, Garbus told me she didn’t know Simone’s personal life: “But of course as soon as I started to peel away layers of that I was even more committed and desirous of bringing her story to the screen.”

As for what Garbus hopes audiences take away from seeing the film, she told me on the red carpet,  “I want them to listen to her music all over again and for that listener it will be a delicious experience because you’re going to know what this woman went through and what she was bringing to that music.”

Celebrities who attended the premiere included John Leguizamo, Sandra Bernhard, S. Epatha Merkerson, Usher, Gina Belafonte, Ilyasah Shabazz, and D.A. Pennebaker.

 


Paula Schwartz is a veteran journalist who worked at the New York Times for three decades. For five years she was the Baguette for the New York Times movie awards blog Carpetbaggers. Before that she worked on the New York Times night life column, Boldface, where she covered the celebrity beat. She endured a poke in the ribs by Elijah Wood’s publicist, was ejected from a party by Michael Douglas’s flak after he didn’t appreciate what she wrote, and endured numerous other indignities to get a story. More happily she interviewed major actors and directors–all of whom were good company and extremely kind–including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman and the hammy pooch “Uggie” from “The Artist.” Her idea of heaven is watching at least three movies in a row with an appreciative audience that’s not texting. Her work has appeared in Moviemaker, more.com, showbiz411 and reelifewithjane.com.

 

 

‘Pitch Perfect 2’: Tuning Up for an Aca-Trilogy?

Non-white characters get the short end of the stick in other ways, too: Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean) amps up the predatory lesbian angle (an outdated, unfortunate motif); Lilly (Hana Mae Lee) keeps whispering shockers as if that joke never gets old (it does); and the only lines Guatemalan Flo (Chrissie Fit), another new Bella, gets are about how she prefers the United States to her native country. Can you say aca-propaganda? Such political incorrectness is an unfortunate default to early second-wave feminism, which marginalized women who weren’t straight and Caucasian.

Film Title: Pitch Perfect 2

 


This guest post by Lisa Rosman previously appeared at Word and Film and on her website Signs and Sirens. Cross-posted with permission.


Here at Word and Film, we are not in the business of grading movies. But if I were to grade Pitch Perfect 2, the much-anticipated follow-up to the breakout 2012 musical comedy, I’d give it a solid B. As sequels go, that’s not bad, and the film deserves extra points for sidestepping the meta-movie trap into which so many comedic sequels fall. (Here’s looking at you, 22 Jump Street.) But, though I’m a huge fan of its pop-feminism and hip a cappella (no, that’s not an oxymoron), Pitch Perfect 2 doesn’t quite hit the high notes of its predecessor. Chalk that up to a too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen plot and a disappointing profusion of micro-aggression.

The film begins as the Barden Bellas, the prize-winning all-female a cappella group from a fictional Georgia college, become a national joke when Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) suffers a spectacular wardrobe malfunction during a concert for the Obamas and Shonda Rhimes. (Insert Scandal joke here.) In order to claw their way back to good standing, the girls have to win the a cappella world title. The problem? No one’s been able to beat Das Sound Machine, a German group led by Kommissar (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), a sort of BDSM Barbie.

Cynthia_Rose1

Most of the gang from the first movie is still in place – Chloe (Brittany Snow) is now in her third senior year – and there’s a new Bella, legacy Emily (Hailee Steinfeld, sunnier than we’ve ever seen her), who is bummed the group is in such disrepute. Also still in attendance: commentators John (John Michael Higgins) and Gail (Elizabeth Banks, who now doubles as director). John’s bad-taste humor, a throwback to Fred Willard’s shtick in the dog mockumentary Best in Show, is more problematic in this film, especially at the international competition, where he throws out nearly every ugly stereotype about minorities under the sun. Because Banks has fewer good lines this time around (in the spirit of ill-advised modesty?), John’s racism goes unchecked. The effect, for example when an Indian group leaves the stage, is a tacit endorsement of such comments as “they’re running offstage to take more of our jobs.”

Non-white characters get the short end of the stick in other ways, too: Cynthia Rose (Ester Dean) amps up the predatory lesbian angle (an outdated, unfortunate motif); Lilly (Hana Mae Lee) keeps whispering shockers as if that joke never gets old (it does); and the only lines Guatemalan Flo (Chrissie Fit), another new Bella, gets are about how she prefers the United States to her native country. Can you say aca-propaganda? Such political incorrectness is an unfortunate default to early second-wave feminism, which marginalized women who weren’t straight and Caucasian.

1423594985_pitch-perfect-zoom-1024x618

At times, Pitch Perfect 2 is so diffuse and so packed with random cameos that it seems like a mildly funny SNL 40. An underground aca-contest between Das Sound Machine, some (real-life) Green Bay Packers, the Bellas, and the “Tone Hangers” (featuring such comedians as Reggie Watts and John Hodgman) is admittedly hilarious, especially with a Southern-fried David Cross at the helm. But other sidebars fall flat, as they draw focus from the barely there main story: Beca (Anna Kendrick) tries to keep her recording internship secret; Fat Amy and Bumper (Adam DeVine) embark on a surprisingly dull courtship (who knew there could be too much Fat Amy?); and we’re subjected to a super-dull flirtation between Benji (Ben Platt) and Emily, which feels like a sidebar to a sidebar. One plot that gets no screen time this go-round: the romance between Jesse (Skylar Astin) and Beca, which is just as well as their chemistry always seems forced. (Sexually, Beca only perks up when Kommissar comes onscreen; now there’s a plotline that could’ve been interesting.) In general, Beca seems incapable of connecting with others although she’d supposedly cleared that hurdle in the first movie. Kendrick plays this suspiciously convincingly, as if a sequel wasn’t exactly her bright idea.

But sisterhood is still powerful, and it all gels whenever the girls sing and dance together. Despite my misgivings, I teared up when the Bellas performed an original song co-written by Beca and Emily – “Flashlight” is the new “Cups,” trust me – especially when other generations of the group joined the stage; the idea of celebrating an “old girls network” on the big screen is still revolutionary. So maybe it’s good news that, given this film’s blockbuster opening weekend (it edged out Mad Max domestically), we can expect a Pitch Perfect 3 – ideally with those sophomore-slump kinks worked out. Hollywood can always use more ladies-first ladies.

 


A former labor organizer, Lisa Rosman has reviewed film for such outlets as Time Out New York, Salon, Us Magazine, Flavorwire, LA Weekly, RogerEbert.com, and CBS News. She appears weekly on the NY1 film review show Talking Pictures and writes on film, feminism, and eavesdropping for SignsandSirens.com. Most notably, she once served as an assistant for Elmo on Sesame Street.

 

 

Director Diane Bell Chats about ‘Bleeding Heart’ Stars Jessica Biel and Zosia Mamet

During the festival I met with Bell at a restaurant in the Meatpacking district to chat about her film and following are edited highlights:

Director Diane Bell
Director Diane Bell

 


This is a guest post by Paula Schwartz.


Bleeding Heart, written and directed by Diane Bell, stars Jessica Biel and Zosia Mamet as two sisters who have never known each other. Biel plays May, a reserved and disciplined yoga instructor who has enlisted a private investigator to help her track down her long-lost biological sister, Shiva (Mamet). She discovers her younger sister is a prostitute in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend who is also her pimp. May feels protective and driven to rescue Shiva from her chaotic and dire financial and personal situation.

Bleeding Heart begins as a character study of two very different women and turns into a revenge thriller. The movie features two strong female roles by actresses who are usually typecast. A deglamorized Biel get a chance to show of her acting range instead of coasting on her looks, while Mamet is convincing as a hooker with a heart of gold trapped in a toxic relationship, a role world’s away from the whiny, privileged Shoshanna she plays in Girls.

The cinematography is particularly beautiful, especially in an early scene where May is practicing yoga and her body is framed by a gorgeous Los Angeles sunrise. In a shot that feels like it could only be directed only by a woman, the camera pans over every part of Biel’s body as she does her yoga routine and rather than sexualizing her, reveals her strength and power, something May is not even aware of at that moment.

Bleeding Heart recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, which screened 119 features, of which only 30 were by women filmmakers. Bleeding Heart was one of 12 narrative films by women directors screened. This is an improvement over the previous year but not good enough. (Biel, who is married to Justin Timberlake, had just given birth to a baby boy and was unable to make the movie’s premiere at Tribeca.)

Zosia Mamet
Zosia Mamet

 

During the festival I met with Bell at a restaurant in the Meatpacking district to chat about her film and following are edited highlights:

Talk about the opening shot of the film, where Jessica is practicing yoga and the sun rises. The camera focuses on different parts of Biel’s body and it feels like only a woman filmmaker could get a shot like this.

This is why we need more female filmmakers, because it’s a different perspective. Everyone’s got a different perspective, and we have different stories and different ways of looking at the world. I feel that the stories we have on film just don’t reflect our reality; they also create it. They also change how we see things.

I was very blessed with Jessica that when she got onboard the film she probably had about three months in which she completely immersed herself in the yoga practice.

Jessica hadn’t done much yoga before the film?

She’d done some yoga but like I was very specific with this film that she’s an Ashtanga Yoga practitioner, which is what I taught and which I practiced, so she immediately started practicing Ashtanga every single day. And she started working out in the gym. She completely committed to it and she became vegetarian, and she went the whole way with it.

The thing that’s different with Ashtanga than with other kinds of yoga is you do a self-practice. You learn the sequence of positions and you do them. So when she came to shoot it she knew the sequence… I’ve done it every day for 15 years or something. We knew what it was that we were doing.  And I think the thing that really comes across in those scenes is her level of concentration. She’s in that zone.

And Zak (Mulligan) and I, my DP, was just phenomenal, and we knew the kind of lighting that we wanted. The film both starts and ends with that moment of dawn, of the sun coming up. Ashtanga yoga is typically practiced in the very early mornings so ideally you’re practicing from when it’s dark until when it’s light. And that was something that was really important to me, so in the opening sequence it goes back and forth between her teaching a class and also her doing her own practice. When she’s doing her own practice, it’s just that cool light of like pre-dawn, before the sun comes out when it’s a little bit blue. And then when she’s teaching, it’s light and it’s just past the sun coming out. And that’s typically what Ashtanga teaches.

Diane Bell
Diane Bell

 

Jessica Biel is usually typecast, especially in roles that focus on her looks and being sexy. In the film she hardly wears makeup and her hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail. Were you worried she’d be able to pull this off?

My concern when she was suggested was that she’s so glamorous. My impression was that she’s so perfect and glamorous and I didn’t think she’ll be able to do this, you know, and the first thing she said to me when I met her was, “I understand May because everybody thinks my life is perfect, but I’m a human being.” I asked her if she would be happy to have no make up and she said, “100 percent.”

What was your production schedule?

We shot the film in 19 days, 12 hours a day normally. As a director I will not go over time. It’s not fair to cast. 12 hours a day is plenty for everybody, and I’m absolutely rigorous, being lucky in both my films working with great first ADs, and then just absolutely rigorous about just keeping it going and keeping that momentum and getting our days every day.
 
Talk about the chemistry between Zosia Mamet and Jessica Biel since that is crucial for the story since it focuses on their relationship.

Everybody connected and bounded very quickly. And I think a lot of friendships came out of the film. I know Zosia and Jessie became really close. They didn’t know each other before, but the moment they met, and this is one of those things, you just say, “Oh my God, I’m so lucky!” They really clicked. They somehow brought out something great in each other. On set, as human beings too, they just had that connection. They were just like sort of goofy together. There were lots of laughs and you could see they had a bound.

Did you test them together?

No. The funny thing about that sort of chemistry between people, like I feel the movie is partly a love story. It’s about these two women falling in love with each other. And I knew it had to have that chemistry. It’s just like a love story. There’s got to be that sort of spark and I feel they really had it. I felt it every day on set. The two of them together are so charming and sweet and funny.

In the film their characters are both controlled by men although in different ways. Shiva’s boyfriend is her pimp, and he is violent and abusive, while May’s partner is gentle and good to her, but he also tries to control her life. Talk about that.

It was just something that I was interested in. There’s explicit violence and then there’s sort of like another kind of violence, which is sort of implicit.

May’s boyfriend wouldn’t identify himself as being a controlling person and would hate to think of himself as that, and she wouldn’t think of herself as being in that relationship, but that’s what they are. Those are the mechanisms of their relationship and that was definitely something I kind of wanted to say of these two women. They’re two opposites, yin yang, but they’re really the same.

Zosia Mamet
Zosia Mamet

 

In the production notes it says you are fascinated by violence. What do you mean?

There’s so much of it in our society. How do we actually deal with it? I don’t like violence at all. I absolutely detest it. I’m a complete pacifist. And for me one of the questions driving this film from my perspective was, okay, if you’re completely committed to peace, it’s easy to be peaceful if everyone around you is peaceful. It’s super easy, it’s great. But what if you have to deal with somebody who’s really violent? How far do you go to help someone, protect someone from someone who’s really violent?

In our society domestic abuse and the murder of women by spouses or boyfriends are epidemic. And it’s something we don’t want to talk about. I looked up the actual statistics of it before coming here because I thought, I better get it right. In my head I thought it was about 30 women a month are killed in America by their partners right? That was the figure I had in my head. I looked it up. It’s really three women a day. On average spouses or ex-boyfriends are killing three women everyday. That’s an epidemic!
 
What is your next movie?

The next one I’m going to shoot in July. We’re Crowdfunding right now in a totally off the grid way. It’s a micro-budget movie. It’s called Of Dust and Bones. It’s about a widow of a war journalist and her husband was killed in Syria. She had decided to just retreat from the world. She lives a monastic kind of life in the desert where she wants no part of what she views as this crazy world, basically. Then her husband’s best friend and colleague, Alex, who actually sent her husband to Syria, comes to visit her. He has come with an agenda. He wants the rights to her dead husband’s last photographs. She feels very strongly that there’s no hope to be good in this world and every time we try to make things better we actually end up making things worse creating more suffering. The film is about what unfolds between them in the desert over these days. It’s these two wildly different viewpoints clashing.

 

See also at Bitch Flicks: “Vive La Revolution!” by Diane Bell

 


Paula Schwartz is a veteran journalist who worked at the New York Times for three decades. For five years she was the Baguette for the New York Times movie awards blog Carpetbaggers. Before that she worked on the New York Times night life column, Boldface, where she covered the celebrity beat. She endured a poke in the ribs by Elijah Wood’s publicist, was ejected from a party by Michael Douglas’s flak after he didn’t appreciate what she wrote, and endured numerous other indignities to get a story. More happily she interviewed major actors and directors–all of whom were good company and extremely kind–including Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Plummer, Dustin Hoffman and the hammy pooch “Uggie” from “The Artist.” Her idea of heaven is watching at least three movies in a row with an appreciative audience that’s not texting. Her work has appeared in Moviemaker, more.com, showbiz411 and reelifewithjane.com.